The video was for a new client of StudioNow's, who over the years have sent me a considerable amount of work. I'm always exceptionally excited to get a StudioNow job, because the pay is inevitably better, even if the video is essentially the same as a Yelp video.
This new client provides marketing and website-building services to doctors - sort of like iMatrix, except it pays a bit more. The job today was to shoot two videos for the same doctor, a plastic surgeon in Princeton, one for each of her offices. My friend Josh Staab came along to run sound and provide general assistance, a role he's been filling for about a year-and-a-half.
Now, not all the women were Amazons - just the office manager: a six-foot, dark-complexioned siren with a thick Serbian accent. A "real woman," as Josh said. The shoot was built around an interview of the doctor plus B Roll of the practice's machinery in use. There were more lasers there than you'd find in any two installments of either the Star Wars or Star Trek franchises combined. Plus, the office staff stripped down and took their places on the treatment table as stand-ins for patients while we shot the different procedures being performed on them. So basically, these ladies spent the workday primping and pampering each other while I filmed it. Not bad work if you can get it.
The day's shoot acted as a bit of a tonic to the bad news I reecived late last week: Destination America passed on the paranormal pitch that I made to them a week earlier. That was a bit of a surprise. When I spoke by phone to the manager of development at The Discovery Channel (which owns Destination America) a week or so ago, she seemed very enthusiastic about the concept. It fit right into their "space," she said, which is high praise indeed. Yet, in the end, they had a "limited number of time slots" to fill, and had to be "very selective" about the content they choose to take to the next stage of development. Yadda, yadda, yadda...
No matter. Jesper, my partner in Reel Stuff Entertainment, is adamant about going forward with a 10-15 minute pilot we shoot and distribute ourselves online. We demonstrate that there's an audience for this show, then go back to The Discovery Channel (or someone else) to see if they'll reconsider. Vince seconds this idea, and even suggests it might work as a Rabbit Bandini production. As they say - when Fate closes a door, she opens a window. Now the task is planning and preparing that pilot, which will probably start with a sit-down, on-camera interview with the "main character" of the paranormal show, just to get some video on him.
Stay tuned. This is one thread of the unfolding story of my life as a preditor, and we'll see how it develops.
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